


Moments of Sufficient Lucidity

by NacreousGore



Series: Burning Despair Does Ache [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Desperation, Gen, Kanima Venom, Mental Anguish, Nogitsune, Nogitsune Effects, Nogitsune Trauma, Omorashi, Paralysis, Psychological Torture, Wetting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27823420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NacreousGore/pseuds/NacreousGore
Summary: Set during S3E22, the Nogitsune toys with Stiles, rubbing in the extent of his lack of control over himself.
Series: Burning Despair Does Ache [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036131
Kudos: 23





	Moments of Sufficient Lucidity

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from the Caretaker song

The Kanima venom had worked fast, sending out a heavy call of numbness throughout Stiles’ conquered body. Distantly, deep beneath the surface of his own mind, the real Stiles was hit with a cold wave of relief - temporarily stunned, the demon was trapped in the body it had possessed, and rendered useless for as long as the paralytic poison lasted. 

Stiles, trapped too, could only try to accept his position even as he was forced to listen to the monster warp his own voice, and echo it back into his ears. It was tearing into his friends, matching the venom attacking his muscles by spitting vengeance back out into the room. 

It felt dreamlike, as if he was trapped beneath a mirror, held down to watch the expressions of his friends, and when he looked at them all he could see was their mistrust and spite aimed back at him. It was a psychological ambush, and one that Stiles was helpless to listen to be carried out in full effect until Deaton was tearing off a strip of electrical tape, and fastening it across his mouth. Again, a cold sliver of relief. It doesn’t last. 

Truly trapped and silenced now, Stiles was left with the spinning and boiling rage of the demon, screaming against the restraints with his own vocal cords. Stiles had wrestled with it, tried to give in to the numbness, to block out the monster. Instead he was left to feel the demon pulling at the levers within himself, as if it were experimenting with the controls. Fully aware of the sensations as the Nogitsune twisted through the muscles behind his face, contorting his expression, his tongue. 

Stiles had no defence, nothing to resist with when the demon began digging at him for tears. They spilled easily, more Stiles’ own than anything the Nogitsune was trying to manufacture, and Stiles could feel them soaking down his face almost as vividly as he could feel the deep gash across his abdomen, and the smooth calm of Melissa’s hands that tried to treat it. 

It wasn’t until Melissa was faced with the Nogitsune’s falsely pleading expression that Stiles could feel the first real twist of joy from the creature. And Melissa had responded to it - had wanted to believe there was still a piece of Stiles that was trying to get back out, even as he had writhed against his own subconscious, trying to scream at her not to let it win. It was a lapse in judgement, a swell in her sympathy that was met immediately with cruel mocking, and when she re-fixed the tape across his mouth it was with a shaken and disappointed expression. 

It was then that the Nogitsune chose to dive back beneath the surface, leaving Stiles at the forefront of his mind again. In control of his thoughts and body, and entirely too aware of his situation. Paralyzed, gagged, and held at a distrustful distance from his friends. 

It takes Stiles a moment to realize he’s been placed back in the pilot’s seat. The realization is silent, spreading. Shifting like a great fog lifting from his mind, details of the room coming back to him with startling clarity. His body is completely numb, his awareness almost tentative inside his limbs. He’s unsure at first, trying to search through the holes in his mind for signs of the monster. There’s a paranoid nag surrounding his skull, certain that it’s another trick, but he finds no trace of the thing aside from the bone-deep and sinking dread. The same kind that’s followed him out of every dream since submerging into the water tank. 

Once it really settles on him that he’s really there, that he’s actually himself again, Stiles is hit with a swelling gage of panic. It moves with a sentience of its own - a restless, screaming urge to try to move, to break free. But the Kanima venom does its job well, and the most Stiles can manage is a series of jagged motions with his neck. He’s certain that the Nogitsune has a motive for this new game, and it’s the not-seeing of that gameplay that terrifies Stiles. He can’t reason with his presence, back inside his own mind, can’t find any advantage the demon could have with putting him back other than to torture him. 

It’s physically painful to clamp down on the instinct to reach out for help. Scott is refusing to look at him directly, and that hurts as much as the wound across his stomach does. Deaton was no longer in sight, Lydia still frozen in the doorway like she was afraid to come any closer. And the Nogitsune had already played him against Melissa. 

Just trying to keep his breathing steady through his nose is panic-inducing even without the added factors of full-body paralysis, but Stiles tries. Throws himself into it, trying to still the pitching anxiety in his mind, to settle into it and let his friends try to sort out his possession. He’s almost tricked himself into a mental state of imposed stillness when the first trace of an urge to pee comes.

Then it hits him like a sucker punch - the Nogitsune is just playing another trick, but this one is on him. 

The faint urge seems to laugh at him. It’s not a persisting need yet, but a dragging suggestion in his bladder. It’s subtle enough that Stiles is almost able to convince himself he can handle it - until the logical part of his mind takes the reins back from the frightened part.

Stiles knows Kanima venom - intimately enough to know that the dose Deaton had given him would last at least two hours. On top of knowing this, he can see how deftly the demon has cut his ties. And that even if he were able to ask for assistance, there was a bolt of terror at that being part of the Nogitsune’s plan. The consequences of being allowed to get up, even if he hadn’t been paralyzed were too severe to even risk attempting to get someone’e attention. 

These factors left Stiles with one viable solution - wait out the venom. 

Two hours - give or take - would be perfectly possible under other circumstances. Uncomfortable, but manageable. Something that could be dealt with, paired with a bit of squirming and will power. And there was the main issue with this plan. Stiles’ mind was compromised - he had control of it for now, but the control felt flighty, and not to be depended on. And squirming, leg crossing, tightening of muscles were all off the table thanks to the encompassing bite of the venom.

On top of that, it’s a challenge to just stay present, stay fighting at the front of his own mind. The wound across his abdomen hurts in slow lurches of lagging pain, and Stiles’ thoughts feel interrupted and jumpy - uneasy and watching for any sign that the Nogitsune is taking him over again. 

_Two hours - give or take_ \- and he repeats this to himself, over and over until the words lose most sense of their meaning. Time for Scott and the others to figure something out, time for Deaton to dose him again. By the time the words are nothing more than sanded down shapes inside his mind, Stiles has almost convinced himself that diligence will get him through - just hold out for his friends to find a solution, to get this over with. 

But _god,_ he’s tired. The strain to concentrate on anything, let alone something as far away and slippery as hope feels impossible, and even as he tries to riot against it, Stiles can feel himself slipping dangerously towards something close to sleep. 

It creeps up, it bites down, and digs in. 

_Falling into sleep casts Stiles into an empty room. The walls are warping mirrors, bathed in shadows and water stains, and he’s chained to a chair, a flat metal table in front of him. A stainless steel interrogation room, and sat in the chair across from him is the Nogitsune._

_It looks at him, his own face peeling from behind the soiled bandages. It cocks its head to the side, lifts a frayed hand, waves at him. The gesture is almost flirtatious, and Stiles can feel a hollow pit inside his stomach. Disgust, despair, desperation, and when he looks down at himself the gash in his stomach has opened up like a mouth, spilling his organs and great coils of intestines out, soaking hot and wet through the front of his clothes._

Stiles can’t tell how long he had drifted off for when he’s startling back into consciousness. It _is_ still consciousness, at least as far as he can tell, and he tries unsuccessfully to shift in his seat. There’s a soft twinge at his toes and his calves that conjure up relief for a heartbeat, and then cold terror in the next. The venom slowly easing off of him - not enough to move, but enough for that dread to come back full force, trying to take over.

Stiles closes his eyes, trying to breathe out calmly. He experimentally attempts to shift his leg muscles. There’s nothing, not even the slightest twitch above the knee, but the effort sends a bright blade of pain flaring out from his abdomen. It’s a blurry line of pain that extends deeper, sinking hooks into his bladder and it’s then that he wakes fully and the ache really sets in. It lowers into a throb that seems to sync up with his pulse, quickly picking up speed against his will. 

Even in the eerie wake of the demon, in the quiet of his own mind, Stiles can feel the thing digging away at him. He can understand, in a rocky and unclear manner, what the Nogitsune is doing to him now. Separating him from his friends, letting him feel the extent of control that he’s lost over his body. Breaking him down further - etching to break his will along with his mind, and it feels like another victory for the demon when a sharp sting coils up at the corners of his eyes again. 

It’s then that Stiles hears it - soft footsteps from across the room, and he blinks through the film of tears. The sound isn’t coming directly towards him, but seemingly drawn into the room, someone looking towards him from a cautious distance. Lydia - and the suddenly clear sight of her sends a hollow spike through the centre of Stiles’ body.

He’s struck then with the full weight of the danger he’s put them all in. The numbness of his body seems to ripple, violence surging to be let out from his mind, and Stiles wants to shake himself back into his own body, wants to beg Lydia to get out of the house, get away from him before he’s not him anymore. But the venom has sunk deep, and the most he can do is jerk his head back and forth. The jerking motion sends his head lolling back against the couch, and once there, Stiles finds he doesn’t have the strength to lift it back up. Then both Lydia and the dull pulse of his bladder are forgotten as a new problem arises. 

The stippled pattern of the ceiling dances through Stiles’ new field of vision when his airway begins to close off. 

It happens slowly, like the tissue is restricting in its own time, and Stiles can feel it all. The restricted tunnel of his throat covering itself, the pressure of his tongue at the back of his mouth, closing off the air his body is still trying to drag it. By the time it cuts off completely he’s hardly thinking, a dizzy swirl pushing in at the corners of his vision like curtains closing. 

But then hands are coming in to steady at the sides of his neck, tugging his head upright with a gentleness he doesn’t deserve, and tipping his chin forward. 

There’s a hot bout of fear as the tape is removed, and Stiles’ can feel his mind seem to stiffen in anticipation of the Nogitsune jumping back out. It doesn’t happen. Instead, Melissa’s hand is pinning his jaw from the side, and her fingers are against his tongue, pushing into his mouth and clearing his airway.

Then Stiles is left gasping with a violence he hadn’t thought his body had the strength to produce. In the next moment he’s breathing again, eyes opening to meet the dark brown of Melissa’s. She breaks the gaze as soon as they make contact, and Stiles can feel another welling up of tears at the loss. 

“Thanks,” he says quietly, and the feeling of speaking with his own voice is painfully raw. In front of him, Melissa freezes, and Stiles can feel her thoughts without her saying anything. He speaks again in a rush.

“Put it back,” he says, and now Melissa’s gaze shifts back towards him. It’s guarded, dark and untrusting, and he doesn’t blame her. 

“Put it back, put it back before it takes over,” Stiles says in a frenzied rush, feeling the wet and jarring way the words are leaving his lips, the strangely acute numbness of his tongue between his teeth. There’s a pause as Melissa seems to evaluate him, then the clinging weight of the tape against his mouth is replaced. The weight of her eyes remains though, moving across his face as she looks for something in him, and Stiles can’t take it, casts his eyes back down and tries to level out his breathing. 

Stiles can feel another roll of tears spill out against his face from the effort of squeezing his eyes shut, and he’s praying that Mellisa will think it’s just another trick. He can hear her back away from him next, a hesitation to her gait that something in his chest is caving under.

Then, distantly he can hear the hushed lilt of Melissa’s voice from the doorway to the other room, but can’t make out the words. Whatever she’s saying is cut off by Scott’s voice, curt and almost unrecognizable. 

_“Don’t go near him again,”_ Scott snaps harshly, loud enough for Stiles to hear. A series of tense footsteps then as Melissa paces uneasily back through the room. Next, Scott’s voice is following her, terse and flat. 

“He could have bitten your fingers off,” Scott says, and Stiles doesn’t open his eyes, can’t face the guarded and angry expression he knows is on Scott’s face because of him. 

“But he didn’t. And he could have passed out without anyone noticing,” Melissa says back, just as firmly. “I understand that he’s been taken over by whatever that thing is, but his body is still human.” 

“He’s just toying with you!” Scott spits out. “It’s not really - ”

“If Stiles dies, what happens to the Nogitsune?” Lydia interrupts them from the doorway. “Wouldn’t it have to break into a new host?” There’s a gap of silence before she’s continuing, picking up speed.

“And that takes time, doesn’t it? What would it have to gain from killing its host? Why would it do that?” Lydia asks, and Stiles struggles to turn his head towards her. There’s a cadence to her voice - even riddled with fear and confusion - that’s grounding through the room. Something else winds around Stiles then, more than the now griping urge from his midsection - that it was almost a comfort that if anyone was going to figure out how to reverse a possession they were here, with him in this room. 

“What’re you saying?” Scott asks tiredly. Stiles can feel the frustration from across the room. How much it was grating on him - to be the voice of reason, the stern force, and a thread inside Stiles’ chest tugs hard, knowing just how much it was tearing Scott apart too. 

“What if it isn’t always the Nogitsune?” Lydia says next, and Stiles’ eyes open then, seeking her out fiercely. Her eyes are on him already, just as fierce, and the shining coat of fear doesn’t grow or lessen as she approaches the couch, sits down at one end, never breaking eye contact.

“Stiles?” She asks, steady and sharp and Stiles stays frozen looking back at her. Overwhelmingly unsure of how to respond, if he was capable of responding at all. If letting her know he was there, if she would believe him - would the Nogitsune just jump back into action? But there’s nothing yet, no stirring from inside him other than the slow spread of pain, the ever-growing discomfort, and then Lydia is in front of him - is looking into him. 

Can _see him,_ he realizes in a garish jump, and just for a moment it’s wonderful, and horrible, a shining glimpse of sunlight through the sinking shadows. But there’s one shadow that’s not sinking, that’s still glowering inside Stiles’ mind. It’s unseen but threatening to take over at any point, might be looking out at Lydia through his eyes, unbeknownst to him - 

“Guys, what if - ” Lydia starts.

“There’s no way to know for certain,” Scott says next, cutting her off and there’s a grisly pitch to his voice, like a lead mass. _Please, listen to Scott_ Stiles starts begging internally. But Lydia is inching closer, reaching out, and Stiles is shaking his head again, uncaring if he chokes himself so long as she _stays away,_ and then Melissa is there too, moving in ready to reposition him.

Silence folds out as Lydia unpeels the tape from Stiles’ mouth. 

“This won’t get us anywhere,” Scott says, and the pent up fury in his voice hits the room like a thunderclap. 

“It’s just a feeling,” Lydia says, unaffected by his tone amid the rest of the turmoil that’s sunk into the room. “Stiles,” she adds, redirecting to him, and Stiles falls into the wells of her eyes hopelessly. 

“Tell me something only you would know,” she says next. Her voice is soft and jarring.

“I _can’t,”_ Stiles says, and his voice scratches along the wall of his throat, cracking upon exit. “It knows everything I know.” In front of him, Lydia’s expression shifts into pure understanding. _She does see,_ he thinks, looking back at her horrified sympathy, and he can’t face it, looks away. Scott is digging his eyes into him - scouring, critical and hurt, but Stiles can see something else too. A burning question, a glint of recognition. It’s there for a flash, then swiftly covered up by Scott’s distrust and Stiles has to force himself to look away from it. 

At his side, Lydia carefully slides her hand around Stiles’ fingers, and it’s more of that horrible wonderful. He wants to lean into the warmth of it, wants to shake her off and beg her to leave, and he tries.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says desperately, pinned under the featherweight of her hand. “When it comes back…”

“We’re going to stop it,” Lydia says. The words run him over, add to the queue. The violence that’s been carved out of him, the betrayal in Scott’s eyes. It all keeps growing, keeps pulsing out. The ache in his bladder narrates it all, a deep thrum he can’t do anything for. It all just blends back into fear and pain. The shadow of the Nogitsune, the gash across his stomach. The way he can feel the tissue trying to fuse back together. The slow fade of the venom, the soft weight of Lydia’s hand, and it’s all too much. 

“Please, don’t,” Stiles chokes out in a wince as Melissa’s hand moves against his neck. Checking his pulse, he registers a moment later. It’s high - maybe worryingly so. He can feel it all throughout his body, pinpointed just below the gash, that throbbing pulse in his bladder growing with intensity and malevolence but he can’t focus on it, not when both Melissa and Lydia have gotten so close to him. Close enough to hurt if the Nogitsune rushes back in, if the venom is fought off.

“Don’t, it’s just another trick,” he says desperately, toes curling in his shoes, and the incremental movement is enough to let the fear come back as strong as ever. 

“It’s trying to get in your heads too,” Stiles says, words coming out in a hot exhale as he feels another jolting urge from his midsection as he tries in vain to shift his body away from Melissa’s hands. There are too many pushing forces, no control over any of them, and the sting is back in his eyes, blurring his vision. 

“Trying to confuse you,” Stiles manages before the crying really starts. It moves in great lurches, a convulsion of his shoulders that he can’t contain. He tries to fight against it, but there’s a tightness to his lungs and his next breath shifts in a constriction of the weakened muscles in his abdomen and when the first leak spills out Stiles is helpless to it. 

“Cover his mouth again,” Scott is saying as he leaves the room. Stiles can feel Melissa’s reluctance as he tries to gather control of his breathing. It’s a battle to clamp down but he manages to stop the rush after the first shocking bolt. He can feel that too, hot against the corner of his inner thigh. Probably not even visible, but the inability to cover himself, even to cross his legs is like a whip-crack against his psyche. 

_It’s watching this,_ Stiles thinks next, a little delirious as Melissa covers his mouth again. _It’s inside my head watching this, it’s enjoying this._ He can feel the silent exchange between Lydia and Melissa, about him but not including him, and it aches too.

The warmth spreading out from each of their bodies on either side of him is painful in how close it is. They’re not touching him, aside from the faint pressure of Lydia’s hand atop his, and the terrible-almost of their company reaches out to Stiles in slow ruins. He wants to burrow into it, wants to disappear completely. It’s almost enough to want the Nogitsune to take over again, just to be rid of his own helplessness, but he shakes this thought out of his head as soon as it arises, frantically worried that that was its goal. 

“It’s not being able to _do_ anything that’s killing me,” Melissa finally says, breaking the silence and her words run in a direct parallel to Stiles’ own thoughts.

“He looks like he’s getting worse,” Lydia is murmuring next, and Stiles closes his eyes when he feels her hand leave his, coming up to brush the hair from his forehead. The skin beneath his eyes feels wet, tacky like the tape over his mouth that’s pinching in. 

“He needs more medical care than I can give him,” Melissa says next. Her hands are moving, coming in to check at the bandage wrapped haphazardly over the wound. “I don’t know how much he’s going to heal without at least stitches,” she adds, and she’s moving a trained palm to apply pressure over the still-opened section of the gash. Stiles tries to pull back, but his spine won’t cooperate, and Melissa flattens her hand over the distending ridge of his bladder. The pained sound that’s torn out of Stiles filters out as a pressed whimper, and Melissa’s hand jumps back like he’s burned her. 

The added pressure, mixed with the deep groan of pain from the gash is entirely too much and he loses control again. Another hot surge that he has no power to stop, but still tries to taper off. He doesn’t have the reserves to put up enough of a fight, too weakened by the Kanima venom, the damage the Nogitsune has done, the sheer exhaustion that’s lining his pores. 

It comes out in a slow but steady trickle that Stiles can feel soaking through his inseam, certainty visible now, though he keeps his eyes squeezed shut with the effort it takes to try to fight it. It barely works - stopping to warm blotting drips, and the desperate attempt to activate his muscles, clamp down on something sends the ghost of a shiver through his body.

Melissa is talking, her voice a careful tread, trying to ask him something, but Stiles can barely hear her through the clatter of his own sensations. It’s as if he can feel everything at once, all of it pulling at him, twisting, nerves screaming. The hot burn of tears pooling beneath the tape against his skin, the useless scrape of his shoes against the floor, the damp spread of fabric. 

There’s a shift - someone moving beside him, then the tape coming off again - taken off with more gentleness than the first times, and Stiles has the chance to drag in one shaking breath before he’s fully wetting himself. 

The wetness spreads across his lap, down his thighs and the shocking warmth of it extends down his body like a sigh, a wave of almost calm despite the hot flares of anguished uselessness firing in his mind. 

Someone is saying his name, trying to ask him something, and it’s a startled but soothing tone that he can’t make any sense of.

He can hear something else now, something not coming from the house - the Nogitsune. It laughs inside his skull, digs its fingers along the edges of his mind, racing back to the forefront. And when it extends its reach and takes control of his body again, Stiles feels broken to recognize he’s almost grateful for it.


End file.
